Packard: Fiorina almost destroyed HP

The granddaughter of one of Hewlett-Packard’s founders wrote a letter Monday trashing California GOP Senate candidate Carly Fiorina’s leadership of the company.

Arianna Packard, the granddaughter of HP co-founder David Packard, wrote the letter to the three Republican senators who recently endorsed Fiorina – James Inhofe and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma as well as Jon Kyl of Arizona – over former Rep. Tom Campbell and state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

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Packard has a long feud with Fiorina, publicly criticizing her leadership of the company and pushing for her ouster in 2005. In 2002, Packard teamed with Bill Hewlett – son of co-founder Walter Hewlett – in an attempt to kill Fiorina’s planned merger with Compaq.

“As I'm sure you've seen over the past year, voters don't like Senators who don't read bills before they vote on them,” Packard wrote in a letter first posted on the conservative blog RedState. “Voters (and donors) also don't like Senators who get involved in contested primaries, especially without having done their homework. I would respectfully suggest that in the future you conduct more detailed research on candidates before endorsing them.”

Packard then went through each of the reason the senators gave for endorsing Fiorina to rebut their claims, especially that she is a “proven business leader.”

“I know a little bit about Carly Fiorina, having watched her almost destroy the company my grandfather founded. So, allow me to disillusion you of a few of your stated reasons for supporting her,” Packard wrote.

“Most business commentators consider Fiorina's tenure at HP to be a disaster,” Packard continued. “The stock price dropped by 50% only to rally 10% on the announcement of her firing. She fired 28,000 people before she herself was fired, departing with the 21 million dollar golden parachute that is financing her campaign.”

Packard has contributed $2,400 to DeVore’s campaign, according to FEC filings.

Responding, Fiorina spokeswoman Julie Soderlund, said, "It is unfortunate that Ms. Packard very clearly has been given a long list of false information and baseless attacks by Carly’s opponents.”

“It is important that California voters understand the success of Carly’s tenure at HP and her credentials as a fiscal conservative. This is particularly important since her opponents in this race are perennial candidates and career politicians, and have been working overtime to invent falsehoods about Carly in order to get elected to their next job,” Soderlund added. “Carly welcomes an examination of her record. It is a record that will stand the test of scrutiny, particularly against Barbara Boxer’s record of failure for the last 18 years in the Senate.”